


PROMISES Part 18

by Galaxy1234



Series: Promises [17]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25914613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galaxy1234/pseuds/Galaxy1234
Summary: A new serial killer is at large, Lucifer is hurt during an investigation and Chloe discovers he doesn't only play games in bed.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Series: Promises [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759738
Kudos: 27





	PROMISES Part 18

PROMISES PART 18

“What do we have, Ella?” Chloe looked around the small room, the walls were bare and the room empty of furniture except for a two-seater sofa that looked as if it would disintegrate if anyone sat on it and an upturned packing crate serving as a table, on top of which stood a mug and a plastic plate covered with what looked like chilli sauce. As she made her way towards the body, her feet dragged on the linoleum floor, it had probably last seen a mop and water decades ago. Whatever this guy had been in life he had not lived comfortably that was for sure.

“This is Jack Hinders, 62. Lived alone, if you can call this living. At first glance, it looks like natural causes, until…” Ella used a gloved hand to tip the body a couple of inches off the floor revealing a large sheet of orange paper with the words ‘FIRST VICTIM’ written on it.

“It could still be natural causes, maybe he just had that sign hanging around.” Lucifer bent down to look at the ‘victim’. 

“Maybe, but then there’s this,” Ella pushed the straggly grey hair away from the man’s temple. “Looks like the murder weapon was a thin blade of some sort, possibly a stiletto or ice pick. Time of death I’d say between six and twelve hours. I’ll know more when I get back to the lab, I might also be able to explain the surprising lack of blood from the wound.”

“Not so natural, then.” Agreed Lucifer. He stood up and took a better look around the room. It was dark, even with the lights Ella had set up, the single small window was so filthy it was impossible to see through the glass. A pair of dirty, torn curtains hung loosely from the rail above. An overpowering smell of decay assaulted his nostrils. He had seen better accommodations in Hell.

“Who found the body?” Asked Chloe.

“A neighbour, he’s outside giving a statement,” Ella pointed to the door. “No open windows and no sign of forced entry, so the killer either picked the lock, or the victim let them in.”

“Thanks, Ella.” Chloe nodded at Lucifer to follow her outside, which he gladly did. “I don’t like the ‘first victim’ part one bit, Let’s get back to the precinct and see if we can come up with some information on Mr Hinders.”

“Who?”

“The victim, Lucifer.” Chloe rolled her eyes at him and sighed in exasperation. They started walking the short distance to the car.

A dozen or so people had gathered outside the tiny house, one of them, a woman, reached out to them as they walked past. “I saw him.” She nodded at Chloe and Lucifer.

“Saw who?” Chloe turned to face her.

“The murderer. I saw him, he was tall, even taller than you,” She pointed at Lucifer. “Skinny too.”

“Did you see his face?” Chloe guided the woman a short distance away from the rest of the crowd so that they could talk in private.

“No. It was real dark,” The witness looked towards the house. “He never had visitors, so I thought it odd to see someone coming out of his place, especially that time of night.” 

“What time was it?” Chloe asked.

“It was around two, I know that because I’d just got up to let my Toby in.”

“Toby?”

“My cat. I let him in as he was making an awful noise, he woke me up. I saw that man leaving Jack’s house and he walked off up that way,” The woman pointed behind her. “Why would anyone want to kill someone like Jack? He was killed right?” 

“Unfortunately, he is dead yes, that’s all we know at the moment. If you remember anything else please call me.” Chloe took the woman’s details, gave her a card with her number on and then she carried on walking to the car with Lucifer.

“Well, I think we can safely rule out robbery as a motive, don’t you agree, detective?” Lucifer opened the car door and climbed in.

Chloe got in beside him. “Not necessarily, Lucifer. Looks can be deceiving. I worked a case once where the victim lived in similar circumstances and he had fifty thousand dollars stashed under his bed.”

“I keep handcuffs under mine.” Lucifer turned and gave Chloe a licentious look.

“Yes, Lucifer, I know,” Chloe started the car, “I also know you’ve stashed a couple of pairs under my bed too, among other things.” She pulled out into traffic and drove back to the precinct.

“I can’t find any useful information on the victim, he didn’t work, never married, no family,” Chloe turned away from the screen to look at Lucifer. “I think we should call it a day and head home. Maybe Ella will have something for us tomorrow.” 

“Agreed, detective.” Lucifer put down the paper clip chain he’d been working on and followed Chloe to the car.  
\--0--

“That bloody phone,” Lucifer reached out and grabbed the offending item, he was just about to throw it across the room when he noticed the caller I.D. “It’s Trixie.” He passed it to Chloe and moved off her to lie on the bed at her side.

“Hello, monkey. What’s wrong?” Chloe took Lucifer’s hand in hers and gave it an apologetic squeeze. “You want what? Okay. No, I’ll pop them down to you in a minute.” Chloe put her phone back on the top of her purse by the side of the bed.

“Is everything, okay?” Lucifer stretched out at her side.

“She needs batteries,” Chloe replied a little sheepishly, sitting up with her legs over the side of the bed.

“Batteries?” Lucifer looked perplexed. “Why is she even still up?”

“For her games controller and it’s only just seven, Lucifer,” Chloe rummaged around in the middle drawer of the bedside cabinet looking for the packet of spare batteries. She swiftly moved past Lucifer’s ‘toys’ until she found something odd. She took it out to have a better look, she starred at Lucifer quizzically and raised her eyebrows. “Do I even want to know what this is?”

He propped himself up on his elbow and inspected the object in her hand. “That is a …lemon zester, detective. I believe it’s in the wrong drawer, it should be in the kitchen,” Lucifer thought back to one particularly interesting night he had shared with Eve. “Throw it away, I’ll buy another one.” Yep, no way was that ever going to be clean enough to zest again. Not lemons, anyway.

Chloe found the batteries and pulled on her dressing gown. “I’ll be right back.”

“Two minutes and then I’m restarting without you.” He warned.

Chloe ran across the room towards the elevator tying her robe as she went.

Fifteen minutes later she returned to find Lucifer standing at the bar in his robe, pouring himself a large whisky, from the look of the bottle it was not his first.

“Sorry, we couldn’t get the damn thing to work even with new batteries,” Chloe wrapped her arms around him and kissed his neck. “Come to bed.”

“Is it for her PS4?” Lucifer put his now empty glass down on the counter.

“Yes, why?” 

Lucifer crossed the room and opened the drawer of his TV stand. He took something out and tossed it to Chloe. “She can borrow mine.”

Chloe would not have been more surprised if he had given her a live unicorn foal with a pink ribbon tied around its neck.

“What? Did you think I only played games in bed?” Lucifer turned her around and pointed her at the elevator. “Two minutes!”  
\--0--

Chloe knocked on the frame of the open door of Ella’s lab and then walked inside with Lucifer following behind her. “Have you got anything new for us, Ella?”

“I’ve pinned time of death down to approximately eight-ten hours before the body was discovered, so that ties in with the witness who saw a man leaving around two am,” Ella brought a picture up on the screen in front of her, “Cause of death, definitely stabbed, whatever the murder weapon was it was long, penetrated to the mid-brain section. Not a bad way to go, fairly quick and painless, he probably didn’t even see it coming.” 

“Anything else?”

“No fingerprints at the scene, I did find a couple of dark hairs, DNA was inconclusive, unfortunately. The paper the note was written on is unremarkable and readily available, so no help there either. Sorry. The victim is missing approximately a pint of blood which was not present at the crime scene, so not sure what to make of that.”

“Well, that’s disturbing, to say the least. Good work, Ella, let us know if you find anything else.” Chloe and Lucifer left the lab and sat back down at the desk.

“I can’t think where to go with this, I hate to think we might have to wait for another victim to turn up before we get anything to help find the perp. Do you have any ideas, Lucifer?” 

“Me? No. I see no reason to kill a man such as the victim, he would appear to have been completely harmless, boring and by the looks of him not long for this world anyway, why waste time and effort killing him.”

“Lucifer!” Chloe slapped his arm and turned to face him. “Show some compassion, he was a human being with hopes and dreams, just like the rest of us.” 

“Us?” Lucifer put his head on one side and looked at her. 

“Okay, he wasn’t anything like you, Lucifer and maybe that’s not a bad thing.” Chloe stood up, pushed her chair back and stalked off towards the bathrooms.

Lucifer took out his flask and emptied the contents into his mug. He knew he should go after her and apologise but really she should know better than to ask him such direct questions. She knew he didn’t lie, what he had said was the truth as he saw it. The man had done nothing with the time he had been given, the most interesting thing in his life had been the manner of his death. It was sad but it was what it was. He was in The Silver City now and hopefully, his afterlife would be an improvement.

Lucifer finished his drink then topped his mug up with coffee, he took a couple of sips before remembering how much he hated the damn stuff neat and unimproved, he was just thinking about making the trip to his car to fetch his reserve flask from the glove compartment when Chloe returned to the desk. 

“I’ve just had a call from an informant, might be a lead in the Travis case, I’m going to check it out. Are you coming?”

“Do you want me to come, detective?” 

“Of course I do Lucifer, we’re partners. Come on.” Chloe motioned for him to join her.

“Refresh my memory, detective, the Travis case?” 

“The stolen artwork from the gallery downtown, we investigated it last week, the security guard ended up with a fractured skull,” Chloe looked at Lucifer waiting for the slightest flicker of recognition. “You couldn’t take your eyes off the owner’s daughter.”

“Ah, yes. Fiona, charming girl, beautiful green eyes and an amazing figure. Why didn’t you lead with that information, detective?” 

“Yes. Why, didn’t I? What was I thinking?” Chloe got in the elevator and punched the keypad aggressively.

“Is anything wrong, detective?” Lucifer asked in the most innocent tone he could muster.

“No, what could possibly be wrong.” Chloe rested against the back of the cab and closed her eyes.

Lucifer had to turn away as the doors opened to the parking level so that Chloe didn’t see the grin on his face, at least now she was mad at him for the normal reasons. “We’ll take my car, where are we going, detective?” Lucifer climbed in the Corvette and retrieved his reserve flask, slipping it into his jacket pocket.

“An apartment building downtown, it’s still under construction but my informant thinks it’s being used to store stolen goods, including the paintings from our case,” Chloe showed Lucifer the address on her phone. “Apparently, the builders ran out of money and the work has been halted for now, so the place is empty.”

Lucifer memorized the address, started the car and headed out. Chloe sat in silence for most of the journey and Lucifer knew better than to try to strike up a conversation with her. He parked the car outside the building. It was four stories high, each floor had a terrace running along the front, interspersed with doors leading to each separate apartment. 

Scaffolding still covered the front and sides and there were several large shipping containers on the land in front. Each one had obviously had the doors pried open at some point and any contents removed as they all looked empty. The place did indeed look abandoned. There didn’t appear to be any security measures in place except for two boarded-up windows on the top floor.

“So where do we start looking?” Lucifer waved his hand at the building.

“My informant told me they were using the top floor, we should start up there and then we can work our way down.”

“Very, well, detective. After you.”

“Remember, we are only here to check the place out, don’t go getting distracted or breaking down doors or anything,” Chloe said as they made their way up the stairs towards the top of the building. “We don’t even know if the information I was given is right, okay?”

“Okay. I promise I won’t break anything unless you tell me to.”

Chloe stopped climbing and took Lucifer’s hand, “Look, I’m sorry about earlier at the precinct, I know what you said about Hinders was technically correct but you could have been less, well less…”

“Less, what detective?” 

“I just think you need to be less you, sometimes.” Chloe waved her hand at him.

“Less me? Less angel me or devil me, detective?”

“Honestly, most of the time I don’t even see a difference.” Chloe opened the door to the top terrace and walked through closely followed by Lucifer.

“Well, then I…” Lucifer spun around just too late to deflect the blow aimed at his head, the metal bar impacted his skull with a sickening thud, knocked off balance it was easy for the assailant to tip him over the edge of the terrace. Lucifer managed to grab the railings with one hand at the last moment.

“Lucifer!” Chloe aimed her gun at the man as he brought the bar down onto Lucifer’s knuckles trying to dislodge him. It was then that she noticed the gun in his other hand. “L.A.P.D. Put down the weapon.”

Chloe saw the moment Lucifer lost his grip on the railing, his eyes fluttered shut as he lost his battle with consciousness and he fell backwards and away from her line of sight. It was only a second later that she heard the thump as he hit the floor below but it seemed like an eternity. She fired a warning shot in the air and again ordered the assailant to put down his weapon. For a moment, she thought he was going to comply but then he turned and pointed the gun towards her. 

Chloe didn’t hesitate, she fired at him, taking him down with a single shot to the chest. She approached with caution, kicking his gun away as she went. She knelt and checked for a pulse, there wasn’t one. She forced herself to look over the terrace, dreading what she might see. Lucifer was on his back on the concrete floor below. His wings were spread out on either side of his body but they looked wrong, somehow. A small patch of blood stained the floor by the side of his head.

“LUCIFER!” She shouted down to him but received no response. She ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time, arriving at ground level, she hurried to Lucifer’s side, her heart was thumping in her chest as she knelt down and gently touched his cheek. “Lucifer?”

He opened his eyes and looked up into her face. “Ow. Bloody hell that hurt.”

“Your wings are out, why didn’t you fly back up?” Chloe put her hand behind his back and helped him to sit up, taking the weight off of them. 

“I didn’t have time before I hit the ground, I think I blacked out for a second.” Lucifer rolled his shoulders and put his wings away. The look on his face told Chloe all she needed to know, he was hurt, now she just had to get him to tell her how bad it was.

“Where is he?” Lucifer let Chloe help him stand, leaning on her for support.

“Dead,” Chloe pointed upwards, she ran her hand down his arm and pulled him into a hug. “I’ll call it in.” She rang the precinct to arrange for help securing the scene. 

“Good,” Lucifer dusted his suit and adjusted his jacket, buying himself some time before having to answer her unspoken question. “I won’t be flying for a couple of days but apart from that I’m fine.” 

Chloe didn’t look at all convinced but she let it slide, the uniforms and Dan arrived a short time later, after giving them the details Chloe pulled Dan aside. “Lucifer’s hurt, I’m going to take him back to the precinct, can you finish up here for me?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll get the stolen goods taken back to the precinct and arrange a stakeout, see if anyone else turns up. Why not get a medic to take a look at him?” Dan nodded towards where Lucifer was resting against Chloe’s car, his arms crossed over his chest.

“It’s not exactly a human injury,” Chloe said quietly. She knew Lucifer had suffered a blow to the head as well but she also knew he would not allow himself to be seen by a doctor, the risk they would want to take blood or x-rays was too great.

“Okay, I’ll speak to you back at the precinct later.” Dan waved to Lucifer as Chloe made her way to his side.  
\--0--

Chloe looked across the room to where Lucifer was standing in front of the precinct vending machine. His eyes were closed, he had one hand resting on his lower back and was rubbing his neck with the other. She shut the file on the desk in front of her, stood and made her way to his side.

“Are you okay?” Chloe ran her hand gently down Lucifer’s arm and laced her fingers with his. “Is it your wings?” She rested her head on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

Lucifer shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know, my back aches.” 

“Do you want to go home? Maybe a little time away from me will make it better.” Chloe squeezed his fingers and reached up to plant a swift kiss on his cheek. They were partially hidden from the rest of the room by the divider in front of the vending machine but she still wanted to be careful at work. Of course, by now, everyone knew they were together, Lucifer had seen to that. Truth be told, she didn’t mind one bit but she still thought they should behave a certain way at work.

“No, it’s okay. It’s easing now.” Lucifer turned around and surveyed the dismal food offering in the machine. Deciding he really wasn’t that hungry after all, he followed Chloe back to the desk. The pain in his back was indeed easing but he had neglected to tell Chloe it had moved to his head. After another few minutes, he decided to take Chloe’s advice and put a little space between them. “I think I will head home now, detective.” He stood up and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Okay. Are you going to the Penthouse?” Chloe looked up at him, her concern written all over her face.

“I thought I might go to your house if that’s alright with you.” Lucifer didn’t want to be alone tonight and he knew Chloe wanted Trixie to spend the night there so that she could finally clean her bedroom in the morning. 

“Of course it’s alright, Lucifer. It’s your home now too,” Chloe reached out and took his hand. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

“Okay.” Lucifer headed out across the precinct floor towards the stairs, leaving Chloe to finish up the paperwork.  
\--0--

Chloe picked Trixie up from school and drove the short distance to her house. Lucifer was nowhere to be seen, so she sent Trixie to make a start on her room and then went upstairs to look for him. The bedroom was in darkness, soft snores coming from the bed told her where her partner was. She crossed the room and pulled the sheet up to cover his bare shoulders, she smiled as she realised he had put on a pair of boxers before getting into bed. He preferred to sleep naked but was aware it wasn’t appropriate around a child. She left him to rest and went back downstairs to make dinner. 

“Hello?” Lucifer appeared at the bottom of the stairs a couple of hours later.

“In here,” Chloe called to him from the living area where she was sitting on the sofa next to Trixie watching TV.

He sat down in the chair, scratching his beard with one hand and running the other through his unruly hair. He had pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms and a baggy white T-shirt. Chloe smiled at him and asked, “Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you. Back to my old self now.” Lucifer gave up on trying to tame his hair and let his hands fall to his lap.

“Are you hungry? We saved you some lasagne.” 

“Starving,” Lucifer replied.

“I’ll go heat it up for you,” Chloe stood up and made her way to the kitchen. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

“Is it that swill in a box you gave me last night?” Lucifer shuddered as he remembered the taste of the abomination. 

“Not necessarily, I have a bottle of red in the cupboard.” Chloe put the wine box back on the counter.

“I’ll risk a glass from the bottle,” Lucifer called to her. “Please.” He remembered his manners just in time to make a slight recovery.

Trixie turned her head away and managed to suppress her giggles. 

Later that night, in a building across town a tall, thin man slipped an orange sheet of paper with the words ‘SECOND VICTIM’ written on it under a woman’s body.


End file.
